


we're outta touch (i'm so in my head)

by HelloPotato



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Languages and Linguistics, Space Gays, Spock and Nyota are the ultimate nerd bros, and a bunch of Andorian history nerds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloPotato/pseuds/HelloPotato
Summary: An off-world internship gives Nyota the chance to geek out over weird cave etchings, hang with her bestie, and remember why she wanted to join Starfleet in the first place.Too bad it means being separated from her roommate for three months.
Relationships: Gaila/Nyota Uhura, Spock & Nyota Uhura
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Nyota knocked on the door, knowing even as a voice called for her to enter that she would find it empty except for the one person she was hoping to see. 

It had been months since she last served as Lieutenant Commander Spock’s teaching assistant, but she could still guess his schedule nearly down to the minute.

Sure enough, he was seated at his desk in front of a set of double windows overlooking the quad, shuffling through a stack of filmplasts that were probably assignments in need of grading. Spock looked up when she closed the door behind her, and although his face remained the perfect example of Vulcan stoicism, she thought that she caught a flicker of relief before it was quickly tucked away.

He gestured to the chair in front of him, empty of cadets looking for help with their coursework.

“What can I do for you, Nyota?” Nearly a year of friendship had allowed them to dispense with formal titles, unless there were other cadets or officers around – which was part of the reason why she had closed the door behind her – but Spock still remained almost endearingly direct whenever they spoke.

Of course, he didn’t need to say “It is a pleasure to see you Nyota, I am gratified that you are not one of my students looking for further assistance” for her to know that he was hoping to finish his office hours without having to talk to another person. Just like she knew that he didn’t mind if it was her that was interrupting him.

She pulled her PADD out of the bag at her feet, thumbing through her emails until she could turn it around and pass it to him.

_Dear Cadet Uhura,_ it read.

_A research opportunity has presented itself at The University of Thought in Laikan, Andoria for several members of our linguistics department._

_The university has requested that representatives be sent from an extra-planetary institution to assist their staff in the excavation of an as-yet undated cave system that was recently discovered. These ancient dwellings contain carvings in a proto-Andorian language that is unfamiliar to the university’s historians._

_Our role during this excavation will be to preserve and analyse this language as more examples are unearthed, and to determine an approximate morphological relationship – if any exists – between it and the dialects of Andorian languages currently in use._

_Professors Lak’Hana and S'chn T'gai Spock will be assisting in these efforts in a research capacity. The university has generously given permission for an intern to join them over the Academy break, and our department has nominated yourself as a candidate for this position._

_Should you wish to accept…_

The email went on to outline the exact dates that she would be expected to spend off-world on the icy tundras of Andoria – or rather, underneath them, as the planet was famous for the extensive networks of tunnels that spread below the surface like a second skin, sheltering their inhabitants from the harsh conditions above.

A whole summer spent researching a new language. A chance to practice her Andorii with native speakers and live on their homeworld. An opportunity to work with Spock again in a professional capacity, which she had missed since she finished working for him at the end of last semester.

But it was also an entire summer. Months that her classmates would be spending on starships, filling the gap between classes with onboard internships and rubbing elbows with commissioned officers.

Everyone knew that your grades only played a small role in determining where you ended up after graduation. It was almost impossible to be posted anywhere decent – let alone a ship like the _Enterprise_ , which was the dream of virtually every cadet in her year – without professional experience.

She chewed at her lip while Spock finished reading the email. He looked up after only a few seconds of staring at the screen, though, which strengthened her suspicion that he had least guessed the reason behind her visit.

“This is quite an honour,” he said, “I believe that congratulations are customary in such a situation.” This was delivered slowly, like he was aware even as he said the words that she was the uneasy recipient of them.

“Did you know about this?” she asked, toying with the edge of her PADD.

“I received an email last week regarding the research posting,” he replied. “However, I was not aware that you were to be offered a position.”

He looked at her carefully. “It hardly needs to be said, but it would be a pleasure to work with you again, Nyota.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “It would be, wouldn’t it? It’s just…”

He waited patiently while she chewed on her lip some more and tried to find the right words.

“It’s just – it’s an amazing opportunity, and I would be an idiot to turn it down. I don’t even _want_ to turn it down, but–“

She chanced a look at him, as calm and non-judgemental as always.

“ –do you think it would be a mistake? Career-wise, I mean?”

She tried to explain her worries: that her lack of starship experience would put her at a disadvantage compared to her peers; that indulging in a research posting that was barely related to her career – even if it appealed to the part of her that had loved languages for years before she learned to love space – would cost her a posting on a ship at the frontier of space exploration. 

Spock considered this seriously, as she had hoped that he would. He was only a few years older than her (uncommonly young, even by Starfleet standards) but he already had several years of experience as an officer under his belt. He had actually served on a starship. To her, just finishing her third year at the academy and with another standing between her and her commission, he seemed far more qualified than she was to make this decision.

He leaned back slightly in his chair, his face somehow pensive despite not having shifted since she first sat down.

“Are you familiar with the Drake equation?” he asked, instead of answering her question.

“It sounds familiar. Uh–“ she tried to cast her mind back to the history of astrophysics she had read during undergrad, when Starfleet first became a career that she was seriously considering “–something to do with aliens? I know it’s from before Terra’s first xenospecies contact.”

“You are correct. It was a calculation used by the Terran astronomer Dr Frank Drake and his colleagues to estimate the number of civilisations in the Milky Way galaxy that were both active and capable of communicating beyond their planetary borders.”

Nyota nodded. “It sounds familiar,” she said. And also unrelated to their previous conversation, but she knew Spock well enough to know that there was a point to his seemingly-random tangent. Sure enough, he raised an eyebrow at her and continued.

“To many of these scientists, the main determinant of extraterrestrial civilisations ever being discovered was not the possibility of life existing on planets besides Earth, but rather the longevity of these civilisations. It was hypothesised that once civilisations became technologically sophisticated, they would either achieve interstellar contact or destroy themselves.”

“Like humans almost did,” she said slowly, “during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Between the environmental damage we caused and the nuclear weapons that were developed, we nearly destroyed our own biosphere.”

Spock tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Indeed. Terra is an example of a civilisation that nearly expired before ever making contact with another planet. Of course, sentient life may disappear for any other number of reasons, but the Drake equation hypothesised that for every planet hosting beings capable of communicating with other species, there were many more that faded from existence before they could be discovered.”

His gaze flicked up to meet hers across the desk, and she thought that she could see where he was trying to lead her.

“You are hoping to eventually serve as Communications Officer on an exploratory vessel, correct?” Spock asked her. This was definitely a rhetorical question, considering the amount of time they had spent discussing her Starfleet ambitions in the past, but she nodded anyway.

“It is then likely, in the course of your duties as an officer, that you will come across species that you may only be able to learn of through what they have left behind. Their appearance, their histories, their languages–“ here he quirked his eyebrow a little bit more “–will only be intelligible by analysing the physical remains of their world.”

She blew out a sigh and leaned back in her chair to match him. “So you think that I should go.”

It sounded so tempting, when he laid it out like that, as a chance to hone her skills in the field.

“I think,” Spock countered, “that it is logical for a cadet with an interest in xenolinguistics to gain experience in as many areas as possible that may become relevant to their career. A Communications Officer on a vessel that is lightyears from the nearest Federation planet may be called on to serve as a translator, a diplomat, an anthropologist–“

“–or an archaeologist?” she asked dryly, feeling a grin tug at the corners of her mouth. Nobody could rationalise a decision quite like Spock could. 

Another person might have missed it, the way Spock tilted his head that told her he was just as amused by the turn in their conversation as she was.

“Naturally,” he replied, his voice matching hers for dryness. “However, the choice must remain yours.” 

Nyota groaned. “I was hoping you could just make the decision for me.”

He was definitely laughing at her behind that mask of Vulcan calm.

“I am afraid that this is a decision you must come to on your own. With that being said, I do believe that such an opportunity would serve to distinguish you from your peers.”

She straightened up hopefully in her chair. “Seriously?” _Yes yes yes–_

“Few graduates will have completed an off-world internship,” he elaborated, “and as you identified, serving on a starship during the course of your studies is hardly an uncommon occurrence.”

She looked over his shoulder out the window, her thoughts racing, barely taking in the students who were hurrying across the quad on their way from one class to another, or else sprawled in the fading puddles of sunlight that were still splashed across the grass, or standing in small groups with their heads bowed over a shared PADD.

If she could take the position without it affecting her future career – if she could take the position and have it _help_ her career–

She looked back at Spock and tried to school her expression into one of blank professionalism. It was impossible to manage.

“Then I look forward to serving with you again, Lieutenant Commander,” she said, poorly restrained excitement leaking into her voice.

Spock folded his hands on the desk between them, the picture of composure. She wasn’t fooled.

“Likewise, Cadet Uhura.”

She made the walk back to the student dormitories in something of a daze, mind already spinning ahead to the list of things she needed to do to prepare for the internship, just a few weeks away – she would need to pack, and brush up on her Andorii grammar, or maybe go over her vocabulary flashcards from that Graalek intensive she took during second year, and she would definitely need to buy snow shoes, because her winter boots just weren’t going to cut it on an ice planet. And she couldn’t wait to see the look on Gaila’s face when she told her–

The thought of her roommate made something in her stomach clench, and she remembered the other reason why she was so hesitant to accept the research posting.

It wasn’t something she was eager to talk about with Spock.

But it was also hard to forget, a few minutes later, when she keyed in the passcode to the room that she and Gaila had been sharing for the better part of the last three years. Her roommate was lying on her stomach with the wires of some device scattered across the duvet – of Nyota’s bed, but that was a battle long lost between the two of them – and she looked up and gave her a cheery smile that made the knot in Nyota’s stomach clench tighter.

“Where have you been?” Gaila asked, propping herself up on her elbows. “I thought they might have closed the library early with you locked inside.”

Nyota dropped her bag onto the floor and toed out of her shoes, feeling her face shift into a grin almost against her will. Gaila scraped her pile of wires and data chips to one side and made room for her to fall down beside her on the bed, her feet resting down near Gaila’s stack of PADDs and her head sharing a pillow with Gaila’s sparkly-painted toenails.

Her roommate rested a hand absently on her ankle, the other hand still teasing apart a tangle of circuits.

In that moment, the distance between their dorm room and Andoria felt insurmountable.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota remembered learning about the twenty-minute communication delay that early twenty-first century scientists put up with to send radio signals from Earth to the first exploratory devices on Mars. She remembered, and tried not to grind her teeth in frustration whenever an unreliable subspace connection lead to days of waiting between her emails and Gaila’s responses.

Nyota pressed her face against the glass and tried to not look as dumbfounded as she felt watching the gas giant Andor come into view, its rings slicing a wide path through the darkness of space that, even at this distance, was almost unbelievable in its size. The planet itself was a writhing storm of blue clouds so densely packed that the surface seemed almost solid, like a child’s marble dropped between the stars.

If she squinted, she could just make out one of the planet’s moons, an ice-locked satellite that was two-thirds the size of Earth. Andor’s other moon – craterous and uninhabited except for a small research outpost – was too far away to see, drawn into a tight orbit by the planet’s massive gravitational pull and its own small size. But the first moon was a white speck visible against the bulk of the planet, silent and graceful as it moved through space.

Beneath its surface, burrowed into the ice in a maze of caves and tunnels that webbed their way from pole to equator, 8 billion Andorians were hidden from sight.

Xx

Watching Spock attempt to huddle over the steaming drink cradled in his hands without compromising his perfect posture was an exercise in poorly withheld laughter, so she tried to avoid making eye contact with him across the room.

He was sitting with several anthropologists from the university, although from the scraps of conversation that she could overhear, their discussion seemed to revolve less around their upcoming tour of the dig site and more around Spock’s ability to tolerate sub-zero temperatures.

Nyota hid her smile behind her own mug and tried to focus on the people sitting at her table. Professor Lak’Hana – one of the few Aenar to ever leave the Northern Wastes of Andoria, his white skin and hair almost glowing surrounded by blue-skinned Andorians – was deep in conversation with a historian from Bajor. From what she could tell, he was explaining the great burning of historical records in the 17th century –

“ – without any records of past differences or grievances, you see, the Andorian people were able to achieve peace after nearly a millennium of civil war – “

– while the Bajoran historian listened with a vaguely scandalised expression.

She jumped when she felt her comm buzz in her pocket. Pulling it out hastily, she felt a jolt of excitement as she opened the notification, even while knowing that it was too soon for a response to the message she had sent while queuing for her food.

_Poor network connection: Your message cannot be forwarded at this time._

She swore under her breath.

The linguist sitting next to her – on exchange from Betazoid, she remembered – tilted their head interestedly and laughed as she grimaced in apology.

Xx

She couldn’t help the tiny spark of relief that she felt every time a message from Gaila landed in her inbox. There was no real reason for it – the _USS Lovelace_ was a research vessel, not a military one, and it was deployed to monitor seismic activity on an uninhabited planetoid in the Eridani system. The most dangerous thing that Gaila was likely to encounter was her fellow engineers, with their unbridled enthusiasm for crawling through the belly of starships and getting their hands all over the burning coils of warp drives.

If she was being reasonable – and Nyota didn’t always feel reasonable, refreshing her inbox for the fourth time in as many hours – she could admit that she was probably in more danger planet-side, walking the glacier paths that led to the dig site every day, than Gaila was serving on a Federation vessel in a peaceful sector of space.

A craggy snow-covered rockface loomed on one side of the walkway that led from the edge of the capital to the site of the dig, casting the path into permanent shadow except for a few hours in the middle of the day, when the gas giant Andor was at its highest point in the sky. On the other side of the path was a sheer precipice that ended at the bottom of a crevasse hundreds of feet below the surface. She had stumbled more than once on the slippery terrain, her boots skidding on the ice and her arms pinwheeling for balance while hands grabbed at her coat to keep her upright. It had gotten to the point where some of the archaeology students from Laikan had taken to walking with her every morning, bolstering her in front and from behind as they shuffled single-file down towards the entrance to the ice caves.

(Of course, this service came at the price of gentle teasing over her Terran inability to walk in a straight line without tripping over her own feet, but it was still appreciated. Nyota focused on their encouraging – if slightly painful – shoulder slaps and good-natured laughter, rather than the way her heart pounded in response to the open air a few steps to her left.)

While she knew, rationally, that the enormous distance between Andoria and the Eridani system, all the way in the Beta Quadrant, was responsible for her empty inbox, she couldn’t help the whisper of _space is dangerous_ that played in her mind whenever more than a few days had passed since her last message from Gaila, brimming with excitement and technological jargon. Knowing the time that it took for a message to ping between deep space networks didn’t always settle the niggling fear that took hold of her whenever she thought about cracked hull panelling. Or rapid decompression. Or blood bubbling in the veins of living beings–

She worried, was the point.

Nyota remembered learning about the twenty-minute communication delay that early twenty-first century scientists put up with to send radio signals from Earth to the first exploratory devices on Mars.

She remembered, and tried not to grind her teeth in frustration whenever an unreliable subspace connection lead to days of waiting between her emails and Gaila’s responses.

Xx

_…Some children from a local school visited the site today. I’ve mentioned before how much emphasis Andorians place on rebuilding their past – I think their teacher was hoping that we’d inspire the next generation with our discoveries._

_Andorian children are pretty cute, but I can safely say that they do not care about historical morphology. At all._

_One of the anthropologists had a bit more luck telling them the story behind one of the ice etchings, though. As far as I can tell, blood feuds and honourable duels to the death are a staple of a lot of children’s stories here. Not that humans are any different – most of our fairy tales are downright ghoulish, when I think about it._

_It made a nice change having them there, though, even if we spent most of the day chasing them away from the ice-bore swarms._

_(In case you were wondering, ice-bores are worms that use heat from chemical reactions to burrow through the ice sheets. Apparently, they can fall through the ceilings of ice caves, if they tunnel deep enough.)_

_Andorian children love chasing the swarms. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except apparently touching an ice-bore can cause third-degree burns. One little girl was so disappointed that I wouldn’t let her pick up a worm, I ended up letting her sit on my lap and play with my ears to make her feel better._

_I guess ears must look pretty strange to children of a species that don’t have any…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...have no comment on the state of the world right now, except to say that I hope everyone reading this is safe and well.
> 
> Notes for this chapter:  
> 1\. According to Star Trek spin-off comics, Gaila...actually does survive...so please let that warm your hearts as much as it warmed mine!  
> 2\. Andoria is the moon of the gas giant Andor (uninhabited) and is where Andorians evolved, at least according to the sources I've read. This is apparently an attempt to explain discrepancies in what the Andorian homeworld is called in different episodes.  
> 3\. The Aenar are an Andorian sub-species who live in caves and were thought by the rest of Andoria for thousands of years to be a myth. They're blind and can get around pretty well with telepathy.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's all agree that Gaila didn't die on the Farragut and hum loudly if anyone says otherwise, kay?
> 
> If you're wondering why a bunch of Andorians would ask outsiders for help during a dig, a preview: according to Trek canon their ancestors decided to literally set their historical records on fire sometime during Earth's 17th century, so now they're all doing history on hard mode (and Nyota and Spock are 100% Professor Lak’Hana's research minions and Proud Of It) (shhh just roll with it i like history and i'm lazy).


End file.
